Pink October
Posted 10/2/2012
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Well, here we are---once again in one of New England's best months which is battered by the cascading waves of pink. And not even a pretty pink, but generally bright Pepto Bismal pink. In my community, the weekly newspaper arrives on pink paper; there are billboards everywhere, and signs urging us to buy a particular toothpaste or pasta or drink on an airplane with "proceeds going to cancer research." Delta has even painted one of its planes bright pink (fortunately I was on United yesterday, and it was regular old airplane color). One of the most irritating things to me is that this vague "cancer research" is rarely defined. Exactly to whom is our money coming? Exactly how will it be used? Since that it not addressed, it is even easier to assume this is mostly about sales and marketing.
In addition to just being sick of it, here are my major complaints about all the Pink:
1. What about all the other kinds of cancer? We may get tired of this, but imagine how you would feel if you had stomach cancer and could not get away from all the breast cancer hype.
2. Per above, exactly where are these research dollars going?
3. Women who have been diagnosed with any kind of cancer are not automatically "heroes". We are just doing our best to cope with what life has delivered to us.
4. And, maybe, most of all: breast cancer is NOT trendy or sexy or anything pretty. It is blood red and destroys some women and families while traumatizing many others. The hype would have you believe that annual mammograms = early detection = cure. Not always so. The script is not have your mammogram, oops, tiny breast cancer requiring minimal surgery and some other inconveniences, then quickly back to backpacking in the Andes or walking a beach in Hawaii with a gorgeous man.
To finish my rant, here is a list of good movies to avoid this and any other month:
5 tear-jerking breast cancer movies
Oct 01, 2012 1:54 PM by Kristyn Burtt
ALL OF THESE FILMS REQUIRE A BOX OF TISSUES Hollywood has its own interpretation of breast cancer in film. The top 5 tear-jerking movies with breast cancer plots often involve a dysfunctional family and lots of sadness.
As we honor those who have battled breast cancer this month, here's a look at how Hollywood has handled the breast cancer storyline on film. Get your hankies out, these are five films with tear-jerking breast cancer plots.
1. Pieces of April
In this 2003 film, a young Katie Holmes plays a quirky girl who has a hard time fitting into her dysfunctional family.
Although she's been estranged from them, she decides to invite them over for a Thanksgiving dinner, one that will probably be the last for her mother who is dying from breast cancer. The dinner does not go as planned, but life lessons are learned through the tough journey for Holmes' character.
2. The Family Stone
Another dysfunctional family movie with Sarah Jessica Parker and Diane Keaton headlining an ensemble cast. This
2005 film goes through the chaos of family holidays when a son brings home his uptight girlfriend who doesn't mesh well with his family. While all the drama goes down around them, the matriarch of the family is losing her fight to breast cancer.
3. Terms of Endearment
Perhaps the weepiest of the lot, this 1983 movie starring Shirley McClaine and Debra Winger follows -- you guessed it
-- a dysfunctional mother and daughter's relationship through the years. The Oscar®-winning film's plot leads up to Winger's diagnosis of breast cancer and her eventual death, which requires an entire box of tissues to get through.
4. Five
5. My Breast
You cannot have a sad movie without thinking of the Lifetime channel. In 2011, the network produced a groundbreaking look at how the disease impacts the lives and families of breast cancer patients. An anthology of five short films was created and directed by celebrities like Alicia Keys, Jennifer Aniston and Demi Moore. The stories dive into the journey through laughter, but also through many tears.
This is an older film from the Lifetime network, but still a tear-jerker. The 1994 TV movie follows a career woman, played by Meredith Baxter, who makes drastic life changes when she discovers she has breast cancer. The sentimental film tackles some of the loneliness and isolation patients sometimes feel when they are suffering from breast cancer.
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